Happy Spring!
March/April 2023
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HAPPENINGS AROUND CONNECTICUT

Event Recordings:
Did you miss any of our Workshops in 2022? Click here for event recordings available on our website!







Happening Now:
In-person meetings are happening again - here are a few:
-Cromwell MON/6:45 PM (Mask required)
-Lakeville TUES/7:00 PM
-Danielson WED/6:30 PM
-Windsor WED/7:00 PM (Hybrid)
-Vernon THURS/1:00 PM (*new time)
-Litchfield THURS/7:00 PM
-West Hartford SAT/9:30 AM (Masks Optional)

Click here for: CT Meeting List
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Upcoming Events:
-March 1: CTOA Newcomer Orientation - flyer attached

-March 3-5: Virtual Region Convention https://oavirtualregion.org/convention2023/ - flyer attached

-March 25: Big Book Path to Your Wildest Dreams workshop https://oadallas.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/workshop-flyer.jpg - flyer attached

-March 25-26: Young People’s Virtual Intergroup 2023 Zoom Retreat https://oayoungpeople.org/retreat/

-June 23-25: Tranquility Weekend Retreat in Deep River CT – flyer attached

-In addition, we're offering Newcomer Orientation Meetings
*By Request - Contact SecretaryCTIG@gmail.com
From your Connecticut Intergroup Chair – 2023 Coming Attractions!

Our January Intergroup meeting was focused on what we want to do this year to help us carry the message to compulsive eaters who still suffer. Our 2022 - 2025 strategic goals have already set the direction for us, so our focus was on the activities that we want to implement this year (also known as our 2023 Operating Plan).

This year’s plan includes a mix of new and old activities! Here are the new activities our Intergroup Reps voted for in 2023:
  • Increase outreach to health care professionals; consider tables at professional conferences
  • Outreach to meetings without Intergroup Reps
  • Allocate social media budget to let more people know OA exists
  • CT Intergroup Picnic (BYO lunch) with speakers; newcomer welcome focus
  • Missing faces campaign, newcomer service positions at each mtg
  • Fun events that could include trivia, bingo and more

And here are many of the activities that we want to keep doing:

  • Workshops (on Zoom and in person!)
  • Step studies
  • Public information (letting people know OA exists by using billboards, bus ads and participating in health fairs, for example)
  • Speaker bank
  • Newcomer orientation meetings
  • Our new sponsor bank
  • Our Keeping Connected newsletter
  • Friends of Intergroup mailings, hotline, our Facebook page and more!

Now all we need is the “people power” to work on these great ideas. You can work on a project or committee whether or not you come to Intergroup, so please remember Tradition 5 and consider helping us implement these plans! You can send an email to SecretaryCTIG@gmail.com OR click here to let us know you’d like be a part of the fun by helping on any of these!

-Kimberly C.
CT Intergroup
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Introducing the 2023
Intergroup Board

Chair - Kimberly C.
Vice-Chair - Michelle N.
Treasurer - Yvette L.
Recording Secretary - Ken H.
Corresponding Sec. - Mary H.
WSBC Delegates - Michelle N. and Wayne R.
Region 6 Reps - Donna G., Mary H. and Michelle N. 
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WHY I LIKE INTERGROUP!!!
 
We asked our CT Intergroup reps why they come to Intergroup; here are some of their responses:
 
-I like coming to Intergroup because it is a WE program not a THEY program and I get to do my part to keep OA going - SERVICE is not optional for me!

-I'm so grateful for the strong recovery in this area... CT Intergroup works hard to support compulsive Overeaters and I love being a part of "carrying the message".
 
-I came once because the regular rep couldn’t make it, and I actually had fun so I kept coming back. I think it is because everyone just wants to work together to help other people!!!
 
-There is a sentence at the bottom of CTIG's monthly agenda that says: "CTIG's value is measured by its usefulness to members and meetings. Usefulness is our main product."
 
-I enjoy being an Intergroup Rep so that I may serve as a useful resource to my fellows at the in-person meeting I represent.  I have been at meetings without Intergroup representatives and they sometimes miss important information regarding events, issues and the workings of OA as an organization, not to mention they are not represented on issues that require voting. 
 
-What interested me in joining Intergroup was certainly the opportunity to do service but also the ability to expand my OA contacts. I thought the meeting this month was great as well. Great to see and meet everyone!
 
-Why do I come to IG? The Big Book tells me that nothing would so much insure immunity for my food addiction as strenuous work with other compulsive overeaters. I expected Intergroup to be strenuous, but it’s not. It’s fun! It helps protect freedom from my food addiction by keeping me connected with other compulsive overeaters!

Great people, lots of recovery, good information. 😊
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March & April
Steps

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

"The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, 2nd edition, copyright Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved.”

Living the Step Principles

Step 3: Faith: Trust tomorrow to God but do today what I think He would have me do to prepare for tomorrow. Faith that God will give me what I need to deal with whatever comes. Surrender control of the world to God.

Step 4: Courage: Face & deal with life as it is, not as I wish it were or think it ought to be. Don’t hide and isolate. Face and deal. Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s doing it anyway. Watch for my own faults and my part is conflict.

-Don C., CT.
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March & April
Traditions

The OA Traditions - Am I Practicing These Principles, too?

Tradition Three: The only requirement for OA membership is a desire to stop eating compulsively.
 
*Do I welcome every type of compulsive eater, or are there some types I’d rather not have in OA or in my OA group?
 
*Do I focus my comments on the things we, as compulsive eaters, have in common?
 
*Do make it a point to speak to newcomers, even if their appearance or attitudes are not inviting?

Tradition Four: Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or OA as a whole.

*Do I feel there are only a few right ways of doing things in OA? Do I respect the right of others to have practices different from mine?
*Do I consider the welfare of OA as a whole in making group conscience decisions?
 
*Do I practice the Principle of autonomy by taking responsibility for my own actions and avoiding attempts to control the actions of others?
"The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Overeaters Anonymous, 2nd edition, copyright Overeaters Anonymous, Inc. All rights reserved.”
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Spring
Love is in
the Air...

In 2008, I was a senior in college and at that time started reading a recovery related email subscription - I never stopped. It was my first introduction to recovery literature and daily readers. That same year, I ate a 2 lb. tub of yogurt in a black out in our college dorm, while my roommate told me she had broken up with her high school sweetheart. About a 1/2 hour later, I polished off a whole box of dry cereal with my hands in the kitchen continuing to listen to her with my ears in awe and her eyes in awe in what I'd just done in front of her. Another roommate watched this and said, "This isn't even your break-up! What are you doing eating!?"

Nearly 15 years ago, I hadn't a damn clue I had problems with compulsive eating.

Fast forward to this week, a dear OA sister of mine had to end a relationship, and my heart ached for her pain. I wanted to see her in my heart of hearts and give her a hug. I wanted to lend her my burly sherpa hoodie to drown her tears in. When I first came into program, it was within 2 hours of me asking my then life partner to move out of my home, for I no longer wanted to be in our codependent and food dependent relationship. I've been single for nearly 18 months, since I hopped on my first OA meeting Labor Day 2021.

My OA sisters and brothers are my lifeline -- my love blood and through their experience, strength & hope, I learn from them every day what it's like to move through rough emotional seas and black sky days. A week into my peer's singlehood, she invited me to a weekend in-person meeting. To my God shot surprise, I saw not one of my OA sisters, but 6 of them (!) that I had longed to hug again and commune with through program chats. We shared laughs and tears with one another abstinently.

My heart feels more youthful and joyful now that it ever did in the food. It feels full of compassion for everyone facing life on life's terms-- accepting each day as it comes, not as I would have it....P.S.: My God is so much more doting & agapic with love than I could ever generate through my own self will alone.   

-Jacki A., CT
HOW TO REACH US

We would LOVE to hear from YOU!
If you have a brief story to tell,
SUBMIT to:
secretaryctig@gmail.com




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